Throughout life you’re pressured, whether it was by your parents to get those school grades up, to party with your friends you didn’t necessarily want to hang around with, your boss constantly throwing unrealistic project deadlines in your face, etc. Many times, when the pressure comes unexpectedly you scramble and become stressed to complete the project or assignment on time. Sometimes you can handle the pressure and other times you have a difficult time with it. Sometimes the stress is unbearable and you shut down.  

You know it’s going to come one day so why not prepare for it. Why not condition your mind for the inevitable (i.e., emergencies that WILL happen, unrealistic deadlines that pop up out of nowhere, etc.)? It happens all the time you just don’t know when…Your only recourse is to train your mind to complete everything before its due date so you have some cushion (resources) left over for the unexpected. In other words, constantly put pressure on yourself in order to be prepared for whatever is thrown your way. 

The process to train your mind is very simple. Establish phrases and you constantly repeat them until your mind actually believes in what you’re saying and it goes on auto-pilot. When repeating phrases, you need to give it all you can. You need to put your heart and soul into it – as if you were an academy award-winning actor standing in front of the mirror rehearsing your lines for a big part in a movie. You would rehearse your lines over and over again until you memorized them and transformed yourself into that character. 

I did something similar to train my mind. I used the phrases below to instill a sense of urgency mentality into everything I was doing. I would tell myself repeatedly: 

• Meeting my project’s due date is a failure. Beating my project due date is an accomplishment.   
• I must ALWAYS be ahead of schedule. 
• There are no excuses for missing a due date (not even emergencies). Emergencies should be factored into my timeline. 

…And most importantly make up your own phrases. These resonate with me but everyone is different. Which phrases will have an impact on your life? 

Once your mind is trained it won’t matter what others try and throw on your plate – you’ll always be one step ahead of them – bring it on. The pressures from the outside world will have no impact on you because you answer to yourself.